I’ve just been out planting a trough in front of my house. In it I have plants from Asia and North America, plus some British-raised snowdrops. Hopefully things will settle down well and give me a nice display through the year. I look forward to being distracted by something in flower as I head out to work.
It’s a very international planting. I could have used plants from any country in the temperate world, including the UK, but chose instead to work with a plants with certain aesthetic qualities regardless of origin.
I’m incredibly lucky to be gardening at a time when plants are so freely available.
Old Influences
The big old gardens of Britain’s South West region, particularly those of Cornwall, took real advantage of the 19th century plant introductions. The climate has proven generally benign for many wonderful things, and as a result many gardens could be described as having cosmopolitan plant collections.
Aesculus hippocastanum is an iconic tree in Britain, but it’s not British
Yet Britain hasn’t just had the advantage of 19th century introductions. Aesculus hippocastanum, a species of horse chestnut, is so widely grown that it surprises many people in Britain to hear that it’s not native; it was introduced from the Balkans around 400 years ago.
Mention an English garden and most gardeners will think of old houses clothed in climbing roses and opulent borders burgeoning with plants, but the English garden is a collection of plants and ideas gathered over centuries from across the globe.
Modern Times
By far the biggest impact has come from the Internet.
I can sit here at my desk in rural Devon and communicate with you wherever you are. My closest reader lives about a mile from me, maybe less, but my furthest…?
The Internet hasn’t found ways to email plants yet, but it does allow us to share ideas. We can talk together, electronically, with the same ease whether we’re a mile away, a hundred miles away, or much further.
We’ve long been able to get messages around the world on paper or via signals, but the internet took that idea one step further and added the mass-communication element; we can communicate with many others at the same time.
Trialling American baptisias in Britain
It has its disadvantages of course. The Internet has created an open world where everyone and anyone with a connected device can share their thoughts and, generally, without editorial influence. I’ve covered my gripes with the likes of influencers before, and to tackle that particular subject again would be harrowing for us all.
A lot of gardening media, formal and social, comes from people who want to help others by providing accurate and helpful information, but with the best will in the world there is one issue that still causes issues.
Location, Location, Location
If I had a pound for every time someone from the US told me how terrible wisterias are and that I shouldn’t grow them I would have… well I’d have enough money for a nice weekend away.
Wisterias are not a problem here in the UK. They were introduced to the UK quite some time before they reached the US, and in that time have done remarkably little beyond looking fabulous growing up buildings. Yet at least in parts of the US they’re a menace.
Wisterias are not a nuisance in the UK
And let’s not dive into English ivy! In the UK it’s an occasional problem (sometimes overhyped by those with an axe to grind) but its environment keeps it generally under control. Without those checks and balances the species can go berserk.
I’m an advocate for clear and accurate communication, and while I generally ignore English ivy here I do keep an eye on wisterias. Maybe one day they might become a problem; I disagree with the idea some have that I have a moral duty to obliterate them now on the off-chance that they might become a nuisance in the future, yet I remain aware that one day things might change.
Rhododendron luteum is potentially a nuisance in some areas
I write and post to social media from the UK and with a UK perspective, but my audience is global. Most people will, sooner or later, realise that I’m in the UK – these aren’t typos, they’re how we spell things in Britain – and make allowances for their region. I write here for an international audience, finding subjects that are of interest to all gardeners. My Substack, however, focuses on the business of managing and maintaining gardens in Britain; everyone is welcome but, beyond a few mentions of USDA hardiness zones, I stick to a UK perspective.
How Can We Make Things Clearer?
I had a brief and bizarre exchange with someone recently about boundary laws.
It was a comment on a social media post in relation to a question someone else had asked. The post was a video of someone who was definitely British (the clue is the accent) and the question was from someone in the UK, but I was being corrected by someone talking about shading Bermuda grass.
We don’t have Bermuda grass in the UK.
English gardens often feature American plants
I don’t think the guy was trying to be difficult, he’d just failed to appreciate that boundary laws are different in the UK. In fact a lot of things are different between gardening in the UK and the US, but while there can be confusion I hope that we all benefit from international discussions.
The problem is that while mass electronic communication is very general, gardening remains very specific. On social media you can just say where you are in your bio (and if people don’t look before commenting then that’s their problem), and regular GardenRant readers know that Anne and I are gardening over the other side of the Atlantic.
Bearded irises thrive in some parts of the UK but not everywhere
This issue isn’t new but it’s worth reflecting on. It’s incredibly difficult to be comprehensive for a local area, let alone a country or continent. We see this with gardening shows on TV and online, but also books and magazines. Advice to plant your tomatoes outside now might be sound within a 10 mile radius of my home, but some of you will have planted your tomatoes out already and others will still be cautious of cold weather. Multiply that sort of issue across the whole of gardening and then the whole of the world and you start to wonder why anyone bothers reading gardening things, let alone writing them.
But for all the challenges, both searching for information and supplying it, I’m eternally glad we have an international gardening community.
I know this wasn’t the point of your rant, but we have native wisterias in the US! I have a lovely Kentucky wisteria growing in my backyard in – wait for it – Kentucky. Still a youngling, but it’s holding its own against the Virginia creeper and helping keep the (sorry) dreaded English ivy at bay.
My wisteria is OKish this year – but not its most abundant. Can’t work out if it was a hard prune or the chilly wind.
My Mother told me her Tulips in North Yorkshire had gone over a few weeks back. I delight in sending her weekly pictures of ours here in the Midlands (in pots mind) still in full bloom.
NB I had a cold caller this morning telling me he was ‘circling back’ – I asked if he was a Native American!
Good Rant. Even within the US there are variables that make some plants problematic! I had a Wisteria in Maryland on the framework of my side porch. It never became a problem in the garden because I removed the seed pods once they set. I kept it trimmed to the metal supports and railing…however, I finally had to remove it as it was twisting the metal work! That is where I met my match! I cut it to its stump. Then for 8 years I let it grow about 12″ and cut them off all summer long. Finally, all the stored ‘food’ in the roots was exhausted and growth stopped.
Love your Horse chestnut. I have a peach colored one. It is so big now that my chickens think it is their summer home!
My favorite is when people who have never been to your climate try to argue about it. A lot of people struggle to grasp arid climates unless they have lived in one. I was speaking to someone who lives on the east side of the San Francisco Bay. It’s true that it doesn’t rain there in the summer, but she insisted it was as dry as the intermountain west and our vegetable gardens should be similar. I was extremely skeptical to due to the nearby large body of water and significantly lower summer temperatures. I looked it up afterward. In August, my area averages 25-36% RH. Hers is around 60%. Climate and weather patterns are undoubtably shifting, but geography remains fundamental.
One of my favorite parts of learning the serious art of gardening is seeing what others around the world do with their varied lots, climates and talents. Life would be fairly boring if the only gardens we saw were in our general counties and neighborhoods. It’s a wonderful world.
I’m aware sometimes the “sharing” has caused problems, but I am like Pollyanna and prefer to look for the brighter side. Naïveté has advantages sometimes, if we pepper in a little intelligent care.